I ran into World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer by the elevator on my way to attend a hearing on July 19 of the US Congressional Executive Commission on China on conditions in Xinjiang a year after the riots in July last year.

President and ruling rightist Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou displayed Thursday a dangerous blindness to the historical roots of the "White Terror" inflicted by the KMT on Taiwan during the nearly four decades of martial law rule that threatens to pave the way for a future tragedy.

Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur Congress and winner of the 2004 Rafto Prize in Norway, says she “felt terrible” after hearing that a fellow Uyghur had been arrested on terrorism charges in Norway last week.

Chinese Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, told a Hong Kong TV station Monday, “If a U.S. aircraft carrier enters the Yellow Sea, it will become a living target.”

A year ago today, when Chinese police violently suppressed a peaceful protest by the Uighur minority in Urumqi, the capital of the western region of Xinjiang, the world essentially looked the other way.

The violent protests of July 2009 in Urumchi revealed deep-rooted problems in Beijing’s policy towards the Uyghur people of Xinjiang region in China’s far west. The path to resolution can only be unblocked by acknowledging the Uyghurs’ right to speak, says Henryk Szadziewski.

Earlier this week, Chinese authorities said they had uncovered a ‘major’ terrorist organization. The timing raised some eyebrows, as it the announcement came just a couple of weeks before the anniversary of the riots last year in Ür&uumlmqi.

A new report from the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), To Strike The Strongest Blow: Questions Remain Over Crackdown On 2009 Unrest In Urumchi, details widespread human rights violations committed by the People’s Republic of China in the wake of unrest in Urumchi on July 5, 2009.